06 January 2019 1:36 AM

PETER HITCHENS: Why those few desperate people in dinghies really are a danger to Britain...

We aren’t grateful enough for the English Channel. Personally, I give thanks for it every day, but that is because I have been out in the world quite a lot and know just how dangerous our planet is.

That short, rough stretch of sea is what has enabled us to create one of the greatest civilisations in human history.

It is continuity, stability, peace, mutual understanding and long-accu mulated experience that make civilisations. Without them, the most vital ingredient of human society – trust – cannot develop or flourish.

Look at the rest of Europe, unprotected by deep water. Every century or so there’s an invasion, or a devastating war in which the enemy’s armies sweep through, burning, looting and worse.

A little further back, and you find vast movements of population, in which people who thought they were safe and settled were displaced or subjugated by stronger, crueller or simply more energetic and hungry peoples.

This process hasn’t stopped. China’s neighbours, and minority nations living under China’s rule, face a combination of ancient ruthlessness and modern secret police efficiency.

The Turkic people of China’s far west, and the Tibetans too, are being rapidly turned into dispossessed, humiliated minorities in their own lands.

People who moan constantly about the long-ago misdeeds of the British Empire are strangely silent about China’s steely modern colonialism.

And then there is the vast surge of humans brought about by those three Olympic-standard idiots George W. Bush, Anthony Blair and David Cameron.

Their various thought-free, vain adventures and interventions, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, have set the whole world on the move towards Europe, from as far east as Kandahar and as far south as the Congo.

Nobody can blame the migrants for seeking better lives elsewhere, but if they all do so, they will destroy the very thing they are seeking.

There has been nothing like it in modern times. If we do not check it, it will transform Europe into somewhere else in two generations.

Britain is far better-placed than other countries, thanks to the sea which surrounds us. But salt water alone will not do the job. We have to patrol it and turn back the uninvited. If we do not, the sea becomes an open door, with every beach a port of entry.

A lot of people are currently mocking the idea that the migrants making their way across the Channel are an important issue. They say the numbers are small. They were small, too, when they first began to arrive in Greece, in Spain, in Sicily and Malta.

Then word spread that those seas were open. And the numbers quickly stopped being small.

People-smugglers are not fools. They can quickly see and exploit any opportunity.

If I had anything to do with it, I would tow them all back to free, democratic France on sight and tell the French (correctly) it was for their benefit too. After all, if they knew they couldn’t get into Britain, most of them wouldn’t come to France in the first place.

And the fact they don’t want to stay in France proves they are not refugees, but migrants.

But if that doesn’t work, perhaps we could copy Australia, and pay (say) Greenland to take them in, unless they agreed to go home, with an absolute guarantee that nobody who arrived here illegally, or was caught trying to do so, would ever be allowed to stay here.

Or we can do nothing much, and say goodbye to Britain.

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The ‘peaceful drug’ that’s causing carnage

Will it ever sink in? The authorities are still trying their best to claim that the knife incident in Manchester was part of some sort of terrorist grand plan. All that spending on ‘security’ has to be justified somehow. But the suspect has, in fact, been detained under the Mental Health Act.

Anyone with his wits about him knows that there are far more crazy people about than there used to be, many of them with knives, and it isn’t much of a stretch to connect this with the fact that the police and the courts have given up enforcing laws against marijuana, which some idiots still say is a ‘peaceful drug’.

Well, not always, I think. There’s been an above-average rise in aggravated assaults and murders in the first four US states to legalise marijuana for recreational use. And Finland and Denmark have recorded significant rises in mental illness since 2000, also following an increase in marijuana use.

Cannabis laws, it turns out, don’t greatly increase the numbers of people taking the drug. But they do mean that those who do use it, use it more heavily. Amazing that, as the evidence of its danger piles up, we should even be thinking of legalising it here, as the Billionaire Big Dope Lobby wants.

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Everyone in the Army knows that service recruitment problems began when the job was outsourced to the unloved Capita. But the latest idea, actually begging snowflakes to join up, must be driven by desperation. Why try to hire people as soldiers who don’t like fighting? Next, look out for a campaign to recruit people with a fear of flying for the RAF, and people who hate getting wet for the Navy. Or we could just get rid of Capita, and go back to sending recruiting sergeants out into the pubs on a Saturday night.

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I suspect the Tory Party lost the next Election on New Year’s Day, when huge numbers of railway season-ticket holders in the South East were forced to pay more for less. Many will need to take out loans to find the money for a miserable, disorganised non-service that infuriates its users even more by perpetually offering insincere apologies for things it will do again the next day, and has no intention of putting right.

It is only in the South East that railways are so vital. But it is also in the South East that the Tories cannot afford to lose votes. By the way, don’t tell me that the railways were worse under BR. I remember BR very well, and it’s not true. If they’d been given the money squandered on the fly-by-night privateers, they’d have run a decent railway.

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If I ran a university, I think I’d start a course on just how utterly wrong most films are about the past. You could do a whole term on how completely false the new film ‘The Favourite’ is. It is supposed to be about Queen Anne. Almost everything in it, from the alleged Royal lesbianism to the rabbits and the supposed abduction of the Duchess of Marlborough is either baseless speculation or totally made up. Yet when I went to see it in a grand university town, the cinema was packed. Is it the same-sex love, the monarchy, the four-letter words or what, which bring the pseudo-intellectual middle classes into the cinema these days?

If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down

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The problem with fictitious scenes in historical films is not just (as you correctly imply) that they are included to broaden the appeal of the film. I have on two different occasions met people who were quite convinced that the final scenes in Amadeus (a film which I thought was dreadful) were historical truth.

I have noticed a growing trend in calling these people migrants the word illegal is fading.This country has already departed from the first world i can see it joining the third world in a few short years unless we install the right government.

To Oportoman, who writes: “I thought the parable of the Good Samaritan meant something to you.”

I notice your comment has caused quite a stir. Jesus sums up the parable in (Lk 10:27) with a command to show mercy to our neighbour. But does mercy mean opening our borders? Should we abolish the few countries that have the possibility of working relatively well to add to the large number which do not? As you no doubt know, migration is no small matter. I live in a megacity which has expanded sevenfold during my lifetime.

On the other hand, I think that all the Bible has to say about loyalty, the family, devotion and sacrifice, is clearly in accord with your next sentence. You write: “UK overseas aid… [and] one legal and Christian solution to the refugee crisis… would be to improve conditions in their homeland.”

Achieving this aim requires more than overseas aid. I am sure that you agree that it not only a matter of money. For example, Egypt, a country with which I still have close ties, and where I lived for some time. Egypt’s fast-growing population has reached 93 million. In 2017, the US spent USD 112.5 million on the Economic Support Fund. The EU provides double this amount, partly in bilateral agreements, and Japan is an important donor. (The UAE and Saudi, key political and business partners, provide little in aid.) The Egyptian army closely controls economic and social life. In addition to 62 prisons for convicted prisoners, there are 122 recognized detention centres (mu’taqalat) and 320 smaller police prisons where many are detained without trial. Many prisons are being built, while the number of unofficial detention centres is difficult to determine. At least nine are run by the notorious Central Security. Egypt is heading in the wrong direction, and Egyptians are not finding solutions.

In addition to financial aid, these unstable countries need support and advice. Investment needs to arrive in the form of doctors, teachers, business advisors, etc. So the ‘Christian’ question is not 'how do we interpret the Parable of the Good Samaritan?' but 'are you willing to join us?'

Almost exactly 80 years ago it was the Channel that defended us from the inevitable invasion to come. Unternehmen Seelöwe (Operation Sealion).
That would have totally changed the direction of the war.

80 years is not a long time to have moved on from that to having politicians who are now in charge, that are so weak, pathetic and hand-wringing, they are unable to do the right thing and turn a few dinghies back to stop more and more coming. Possibly bringing terrorists. Who knows?

Now, I'm not religious in any way but, as I see it, as far as I'm aware, according to the Bible and those that believe in the Bible, Heaven as a very strict immigration policy with a set of very clear rules for those who wish to enter. Hell, on the other hand, has open borders and will accept anyone.

Ohhh the moral posturing and lamentation is becoming too much .You'd think reading here that "sainthood' was gained by moving ones lips or from a keyboard .As for those so initiated in the Christian life {and always so truthful they never use their real name] to the point where the Good Samaritan parable is bastardised to encompass social and political policy which enables the pontificator to make packs and stick them on other peoples backs a suggestion.When your "coffee shop" convictions see you taking in a "refugee" or family with the responsibility of financial support and all the sacrifices that accompany the genuine Good Samaritan response then lecture others about "nastiness" otherwise be advised that on this blog site exposure of thus infantile vitue posturing will be quickly exposed.

In relation to migrants, Mr Hitchens has no doubt, as have others here, read about the recently signed UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular
Migration. There's also a less recent Global Compact on Refugees. But has he heard that a Spanish socialist MEP, Aguilar, has gained agreement in the EU Parliament for a discussion this Spring about passing legislation to introduce 'Humanitarian Visas'. It has received virtually no media coverage. The Times did a short piece. I read about it initially on an English language foreign newspaper website. Aguilar's proposal mentions (page 3, point 5) both compacts in support of his proposal. It is - let me say - interesting that despite supporters of the migration compact often saying it's not legally enforceable so don't worry, that it's already being used to introduce a new migration law, in this case to make it far easier for those who wish to claim asylum to get here before making a formal application. As I understand it, it will mean that far fewer will seek to get here and elsewhere in Europe by means such as dinghies and lorries. Instead they will be able to present some documentation and have a short interview in their destination country's embassy or consulate in their home country (sometimes by video link to the UK). I'd be interested in PH's views. I sense that the key thing about such a visa system would be the quality of the interview and the document check.

With regard to Mr. Hitchens comments re. the legalising of marijuana & it being a peaceful drug, may I add that it really isn't sometimes. I had a brief flirtation with this drug many years ago & found it occasionally turned me paranoid to the point where I would totally destroy peoples coffee machines etc. as I thought they concealed hidden cameras & were spying on me. I realise this is rather different to going out & stabbing some poor unfortunate who just happened to be in my vicinity but hope you get my drift.

The idea that Britain (or indeed any other country, e.g. Australia) should barricade itself in splendid isolation and deny assistance to all those seeking refuge on its shores is not only profoundly immoral, it is shockingly nasty! It quite frankly breathtaking that anyone support such policies without any sense of shame.
The idea that such policies would be in the interest of the refugees and of Britain's neighbouring countries is revoltingly patronising, hypocritical and really rather laughable.

At the risk of re-opening a Pandora's box, has Mr Hitchens's view about whether incidents such as the recent Manchester stabbings are terrorism, softened a little recently? On 16 December last year he referred to Chekatt, the Strasbourg killer, as a "supposed ‘terrorist’". In today's column, and in recent days, perhaps weeks, on Twitter he talks of such killers as not being part of some "terrorist grand plan". This latter phrase seems to me to imply he thinks they could be some type of terrorist, whereas in the past he appeared to me to say they weren't really. By the way, I'm not a Tommyist. I agree with most of what PH says on this issue, especially with regard to drugs. I ask the question above just to try to clear up what I thought may be a subtle change in his position.

Peter- Why neglect the usage of the word Muslim in your article?
Predominantly Muslim people displaced by those 3 idiots and those Turkic people made a minority in their own countries are also Muslim. Is it to try and avoid the fact that a. Jihadists could prove that it is a war on Muslims and not just on 'terror'. b. That Muslims are persecuted in many places as normal and so called radicalised Muslims claim? Instead the claim is just that Westerners or Judeo Western world is at attack. On the contrary it has run both ways with one side killing more if nothing else because of its superior technology.
Snowflakes in the army? Those left wing liberals are more blood thirsty than assumed including Clegg

You seem to be keen to exploit the parable of the Good Samaritan so let's have a look and see how relevant it really is. It's been some years since I went to Sunday School, but from what I remember our eponymous Samaritan encountered one man who had been robbed and left for dead at the side of the road, That's right, ONE MAN. Not fifty thousand men all shouting, demanding and threatening to riot. Our Samaritan was therefore in a position to be able help the man and so he did. He could not have helped a mob even if he'd wanted to.

Your feeble attempt to misuse the parable of Jesus to justify your entirely political demand that this country acquiesce to the invasion of a tidal wave of fit, apparently quite well-off, smartphone-toting young men of fighting age is despicable.

It's a fundamental technique of Saul Alinsky's dirty tricks manual for atheists to demand that Christians are judged relentlessly by that religion's own highest standards. Standards to which atheists themselves feel under no obligation whatever in their own behaviour.

The Problem this country faces (as documented by Mr Hitchens for the last decade ) is the Conservative party, who should be offering an alternative to all this madness is now Blairite. The Prime Minister is, in my view, a cultural Marxist, and The Chancellor of The Exchequer appears to be an actual Marxist. (He couldn’t wait to raise our taxes)

2/3 of the Tory parliamentary party are pro EU, pro open boarders and therefore not Conservative. Meanwhile the fake North London, millionaire Labour Party would rather hand over £39 billion to Brussels rather than spend it on the NHS for the working class they pretend do represent. Instead, they think Mr Gary Lineker is better deserving of tax payers hard earned wages for doing pithy puns on a highlights football show rather than the welfare of law abiding pensioners who are frightened to leave their homes because of rising crime rates.

The only solution is either a new political party that can take votes from both traditional conservative voters, and from the Labour voters who voted Brexit forming an alliance. Or the Tory voters must rise up and de- select at least 150 of their local MPs, and replace them with real conservatives who value the culture and future of this country.

I’m not optimistic. The fake current Tory vs Labour choice is designed to prevent real change, and keep the public fighting each other, instead of the real challenges that need to be addressed.

These Islamic experts - they know more than I (a practising Muslim) do
The fools don’t know a thing about Islam or being a Muslim, they know nothing about absolution and repentance
Did you know that all it takes is a ‘Tauba’ to absolve one of ones sins ? Repent and wipe the slate clean - no need to clean the slate by murdering people.

You missed the boat with your comment on Greenland as a holding centre for unwanted migrants. The Chinese (whom you spoke so affectionately about) are currently currying favour with the local population to exploit it's vast mineral wealth and turn it into their Arctic base, as well as a tourist destination. They are contributing to the expansion of Greenland's infrastructure, for example, by providing financial and engineering aid for the extension of it's main airports. I can't imagine the locals being interested in your theoretical proposal.

There aren't enough people in the traditional recruiting ground due to demographic change, higher mandatory education age, high employment rates and the fact that the Army is now so small only 7% of the entire population knows or have ever met a soldier.

Posted by: Ross Towes | 06 January 2019 at 09:24 AM

That seems an extraordinarily charitable interpretation Mr Towes. I think it more likely that the Common Purpose-driven Cultural Marxism of the present government demands that they dismantle the armed forces in the form that they currently exist and re-invent them. Away from being the means by which we defend this country (against erm, actual enemies!) into a warm, fuzzy international rescue force for dispensing social justice throughout the world, in much the same way as on the home front the police have been diverted away from the old concept of crime-solving into prioritising social work, a transformation made possible by hiring only the "right people."

When trying to fathom something as clearly ridiculous as advertising for soldiers who don't like playing rough games and have an aversion to discomfort and getting dirty, we should also bear in mind that the European Army which, despite Nick Clegg's barefaced lie to the people of this country, has been relentlessly progressed by the EU covertly (as is their standard modus operandi) for over a decade. The new-look Domestic Defence Services (or whatever non-threatening title they decide to baptise it with) will need to comply fully with its regulations and demands.

Generations have built the UK to be financially stable, strong and prosperous, only for it all to be undone by politicians insisting on a multicultural society, which has now imploded, leaving violent chaos on our streets. Shame on you.
The UK a la Treasure Island, plundered by those who have not contributed into our system, at the expense of generations who have.
Is it any wonder apathy and perplexity reigns from legitimate citizens, aghast at the lack of leadership and control, in allowing current events to unfold.

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